Lords of Rainbow or The Book of Fulfillment [Hardcover]

Vera Nazarian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2003

An epic fantasy about a monochrome world without color, an eccentric warrior woman, a decadent glorious city, and the ultimate struggle against the coming of darkness both external and inside the human heart.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A unique fantasy world in which lost colors hold the key to salvation. . . . Fluid storytelling and vividly drawn characters. -- Library Journal

Readers may find themselves heralding a new star of fantasy fiction. -- Romantic Times Book Club

From the Inside Flap

Imagine a world without color, illuminated by a gray sun . . .

Imagine a sudden brilliant flash — an artificial orb ignites, filled with peculiar impossible light. . . .

The nature of this light bears no description. It lingers in dreams, inciting an unrequited love for a goddess.

A corrupt city is shaped like a perfect wheel, and is ruled by a sister and brother, Regent and Regentrix, by perverse desires, and by a secret. . . .

A loyal warrior woman swears to serve a mysterious lord.

At the same time, an epic invasion is precipitated by a being of utter darkness, who is the one absolute source of black in a monochrome silver world.

And amid all this, flickers an ancient memory of a phenomenon called Rainbow and of those who had once filled the world with an impossible thing called color. . . .

Lords of Rainbow.

"To read Vera Nazarian's Lords of Rainbow is to be immersed in a dream, wandering through a wondrous, shifting landscape where the sun shines silver and the world is rendered in an infinite palette of subtle grays, filled with glimpses of sublime loveliness and glorious *color*."
— Jacqueline Carey, author of KUSHIEL'S DART

"... like all of Vera's stories — strange, poignant, and exquisite.... her novel about a world without color — strange when what she writes is so colorful."
— Marion Zimmer Bradley

"In Lords of Rainbow, a current of liquid prosody carries us deep into the heart of an exotic city — and deep into the heart of an extraordinary woman. But every character is a vibrant revelation in this luscious, variegated realm of light and shadow. All emotion rings true in this place, and all truths shine with prismatic complexity. At once brutal and tender, transcendent and visceral, Nazarian's lush fable enthralls."
— Terry McGarry, author of ILLUMINATION

"Vera Nazarian's second novel, Lords of Rainbow, is a delight, full of the rich imagery, the humor, lyricism, adventure, insight, and delicious eastern fairy tale flavor that readers first met in Dreams of the Compass Rose. Nazarian gives us a tale wove out of color — unpredictable, funny, wise, and always entertaining. She's a talent to watch."
— Sherwood Smith, author of CROWN DUEL

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 388 pages
• Publisher: Wildside Pr (March 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592248233
• ISBN-13: 978-1592248230
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,021,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vera Nazarian is a two-time Nebula Award Nominee and member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a writer and reader with a penchant for moral fables and stories of intense wonder, true love, and intricacy.

She is the author of critically acclaimed novels DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE and LORDS OF RAINBOW, as well as the humorous Jane Austen parodies MANSFIELD PARK AND MUMMIES and NORTHANGER ABBEY AND ANGELS AND DRAGONS.

Her official author website is www.veranazarian.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an absolutely superb tale, to be read again and again, April 30, 2005

By 

Francatelli - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lords of Rainbow (Paperback)

Lords of Rainbow has invaded my dreams. It was suspenseful, emotionally gripping, beautiful, original, pervaded with lush, idiosyncratic sensuality, and challenged by a conceptual quirk of world that at first I thought wouldn't really work, but the story proved me wrong. The romance is both more satisfying than any book I can remember for a long long time, and wonderfully strange. As a political intrigue, the story is fresh, believable, and lightly satirical, but it is the emotions that Lord of Rainbow brought forth, and the feeling of being there, and wanting the characters to . . . and not to . . . that made me get quite cranky when my reading was interrupted for tasks like work, eating . . . Sometimes I was so taken up in wanting to advise and to change events I anticipated (and you can't anticipate anything in this book) that I found I was sitting tensed as a spring.

In addition to being a touching and complex love story, the themes in Lords of Rainbow as a whole are powerful. The society and politics are portrayed in depth but with a light and assured touch, as were the characters' individual portrayals. Indeed, I was surprised by the level of subtlety in the telling, and pleased. This writer writes respecting a reader's brains.

I found a very emotional involvement, too, especially with the warrior woman, Ranheas, who often made me want to yell at her. This book could have been another (yawn) improbable female warrior tale, very 90s. But this is nothing like that. I also enjoyed the sense of humour running through the book, often with a bittersweet flavour to it, so that I found myself interspersing quiet smiles with some loud goose-honks. The final denouement was totally perfect. I could hardly breathe. And there is one speech in this book that alone is perhaps the most gloriously quirky, yet romantic that I've ever read.

As for the concepts of colour and Rainbow, I was suspicious at first because I thought I'd find myself disappointed, but I was wrong. Very much so.

So as I reached the great buildup towards the climax, I experienced a conflict of reluctance and greed to consume and be consumed. Reluctance, because I didn't want to reach the end, of course, conflicted with extreme need to know and to once again be in the world of Lords of Rainbow. Even in the crucial parts, I never knew how it would end at all. There was never an inevitability, except that I knew even before the end, that I'd want to keep Lords of Rainbow for my small read-again-and-again collection.

The city lives with me, and the forest and the White Roads Inn. I can smell those onions roasting now, and hear the sizzle of the eggs . . .

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, Non-traditional (and non-cliche!) Fantasy, June 1, 2006

By 

Jim C. Hines (Holt, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lords of Rainbow (Paperback)

Let me start by saying Nazarian is very, very good at worldbuilding. It's something I've seen in her other work, too. One of the great things about her writing is that it shows us these worlds.

In this case, it's a world without color, a world transformed to shades of gray and silver. As a writer, I was curious to see how Nazarian would describe this place with such a limited palate, but she did an excellent job. I was half-expecting this to be the literary version of black-and-white TV, where everything's about the same, just filtered. Instead, this was a rich, lushly described world, one which seemed more real, thanks to its color-challenged palate.

The story itself was strong, following a warrior woman named Ranhe Ylir as she and her companions work to overthrow a siege on the city from the forces of (literal) darkness. Ranhe was a great character. She's got the traditional stoic, loner outlook, but she's much more developed and complex than the average fantasy hero. (I could hear Nazarian's voice speaking through Ranhe when she talked about her vegetarian habits, but that's just because I've seen her write about such things before.)

There were places where the story was a bit slow for my taste. I don't know whether this is a reflection of the story itself, or of my own short attention span. At times, Nazarian breaks out of the story to address the reader directly and take us on a tour of her world, and those sections didn't really work for me. Much as I admire and enjoy the worldbuilding, I prefer it to be in the context of action and the characters.

Overall though, I enjoyed the book, and would certainly recommend it. It breaks away from traditional fantasy tropes and cliches, which is always nice. The characters and relationships drew me in (though it took me a few pages to remember which one was Elasirr and which was Elasand). Personally, I don't know that I'd be up for taking a concept like a colorless world and turning it into such a richly developed novel, but Nazarian pulled it off. I'll have to go back and read more closely to figure out how she did that.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another treat from Nazarian, April 11, 2003

By 

"gofalus" (Zimiamvia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lords of Rainbow or The Book of Fulfillment (Hardcover)

In this book, which is structured more along the lines of a conventional novel than the equally mesmerizing Dreams of the Compass Rose, Vera Nazarian has created something wholly her own, a narrative voice and an invented realm that are a striking rendering of her unique authorial heart. This is about as far as you can get from regurgitated genre. It's got the exciting battles and the intricate plotting and the sense of enchantment--it doesn't stint on any of the things that we love in fantasy--but it also has a cutting depth of insight into character, and an intriguing eroticism (sensual, sexual, and aesthetic), and a delicious style unlike anything else available right now. It's really the perfect novel for just this point in time: a spicy exotic new flavor for the jaded fantasy palate, but in no way offputting for those who love what's out there and crave more.